One weekend in Nicaragua, my dad and I went bike-camping up the mountain behind our house. Following a rutty dirt path, we peddled the loaded bikes uphill until the trail ended near a small shelter made of a few wooden planks. From there we locked the bikes and headed further up the mountain by foot, where we camped overnight.
Nicaragua is never truly cold, but by morning I remember shivering and feeling numb in my hands and feet. We had woken up in a cloud. In that damp and windy weather, we were miserable as we packed up the campsite and trudged back down the (now) muddy mountain footpath.
As we approached the spot where we parked our bikes, we realized that the wooden shelter was actually an old man’s home. He had a little wood fire going in one corner, and we greeted him as he was starting his day. He invited us to sit under his shelter, and he put some extra water in the kettle to make us each a mug of instant coffee.
I love specialty coffee, with its backstories and its complex fragrances and flavors that evolve with each sip as the cup cools. But to this day I also love instant coffee. The sterile consistency of the instant coffee manufacturing process means that years later, every single time I have an instant coffee, it brings me back to that bike-camping trip where I was shivering and covered in mud and a half-naked old man let me sit under his shelter to wait out the rain with a hot cup of coffee.
